What Middlesbrough's rivals are saying as promotion battle heats up
The latest reaction from Millwall and Ipswich Town as Middlesbrough battle on for promotion.
The dust has now settled on a huge weekend in the Championship promotion race, and Middlesbrough still just about hold second spot.
Kim Hellberg’s men were held to a frustrating goalless draw at Blackburn Rovers on Saturday, meaning they’ve failed to win in three and scored just once during that time, while they’ve won just two of their last eight. However, Boro were helped out by events at Portman Road, where Millwall came from behind to draw 1-1 with Ipswich Town in a battle of third against fourth, meaning both sides remain two points behind the Teesiders.
Boro face Millwall next, while they also visit Ipswich in mid-April, so everything is left to play for. With that in mind, what have Kieran McKenna and Alex Neil said in the fallout of Saturday’s action?
Alex Neil: Millwall have nothing to lose
Millwall are certainly the outsiders in this promotion race, especially given they haven’t even contested a Championship play-off campaign since 2001/02. But that underdog mentality appeared to work in their favour at Ipswich on Saturday.
The Tractor Boys utterly dominated the first half with eight shots to Millwall’s four and 65% possession, taking the lead in the 41st minute through Jack Clarke. The second half, however, was a different story, with Millwall matching Ipswich 9-9 on shots and managing the only two shots on target, equalising quickly in the 50th minute through Josh Coburn.
Alex Neil has revealed that he told his players they ‘had nothing to lose’ at half-time and to take off the brakes against a side he labelled ‘the best home team in the division’. “At half-time, when we were 1-0 down, the topic of conversation was – we haven’t got anything to lose,” Neil said. “Get after the game, go and show what we can do, and I didn’t really think that we played the first half with that lack of fear, if that makes any sense.
“What I will say, Ipswich are the best team at home in the division. They’ve got an unbelievable squad. They bring a lot of really good, strong players on. But second half, I thought our lads more than matched that, hence the reason why we managed to get a result. But it’s certainly not to be sniffed at coming here and getting a good result because they’re a really strong squad.” Neil certainly seems to be playing down Millwall’s chances compared to their direct rivals.
Kieran McKenna ‘disappointed’ but ‘taking positives’ into run-in
By contrast, Kieran McKenna was ‘disappointed’ to see his side give up the dominant position they’d assumed in the first half, in a game where every moment would be magnified and points potentially worth a huge premium.
That being said, McKenna is also pragmatic - well aware of the fact that his side have a game in hand on those around them, and take on Boro at home, so Ipswich’s destiny is firmly in their own hands. With that in mind, the manager is looking for the positives to take into the final eight games of the campaign.
“I think it's clear there's a couple of different ways to look at it,” McKenna said after the match. “Because they had a chance at the end so you could lose the game. “But in reality, I thought we should win the game, we're disappointed we didn't win the game. I thought the first half performance was excellent, so I'm really, really pleased with every aspect of it, apart from probably the last execution to go and be 2-0 or 3-0 up at half-time. I think our level of dominance and the general performance was good enough for that.
“We're a little bit disappointed we didn't open up more of a margin. Disappointed we didn't go and kill the game off in the second half, because they came out and put two up front and went man-to-man and locked on, and we had so much space to break through.
“When they do that, we know they're a big threat. They're always going to be capable of scoring a goal, they're always going to be a threat putting balls into the box and on set players. “But we're disappointed with ourselves that we didn't go and execute better on our transition moments and the moments that we broke the pressure to go and get the second or third goal, and really put the game to bed.”
He added: “Then we'll look at the things that we could have done better and we'll try and use this break now to be ready for the run-in.”
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